While Flash Gordon was making his first trip to Mars in 20-minute episodes on Saturday morning matinees, shopping trolleys were being introduced in Oklahoma's supermarkets, and Britain's Mallard locomotive and Cockney runner Sydney Wooderson were breaking track records, I was an early beach boy living in Southend-on-Sea, the Blackpool-like Essex resort.

My mother was a cashier in the Kursaal and during school holidays I played alone all day on the beach and in the sea, or had free rides on the roundabouts until she finished work. My daily treat was a giant cornet of delicious vanilla ice cream. The cornet overflowed and if you didn't lick it quickly enough the melting cream dripped down your arm. It was the best ice cream I had ever tasted and I have tasted none better since, and it cost just one old penny.

An Italian family named Rossi, that had immigrated to Britain during the depression and were opening ice cream parlours in resorts throughout southern England, made the icy delight.

Sixty-two years later having traipsed around crowded York, on a hot and humid day and feeling parched and weary, I had a craving for ice cream; something I hadn't had for a very long time. Seeing a tiny teashop selling ice cream, I joined the queue of eager holidaymakers. When my turn came I ordered a cone of vanilla. What I got was a single small scoop of ice cream, with a minute blob on top. "That'll be £1." As I handed my coin to the vendor, a vision of 240 of Rossi's enormous overflowing cornets flashed in front of my eyes. Seeing my look of amazement, he asked: "Is that too much for you?" I sensed he meant the ice cream, but replied, "It certainly is!" as I walked away with a look of disbelief.

When an item you remember costing one old penny, now costs the equivalent of 240 - and for a lesser amount - you can say you've seen inflation at its worst. Nothing else has increased so much in price, not television licences, not haircuts, not petrol, not even York bus fares. With prices like that, is it any wonder that foreign tourists call our country "rip-off Britain."

If I ever buy another ice cream, I'll use my Master Card. But no, perhaps not, because, it seems, you can't be too careful about entrusting your card to tradespeople. For if it is stolen, or lost and falls into the into the wrong hands, people calling themselves names such as: Harry Potter, Liz Hurley, Jenson Button, Jamie Oliver, Anna Kournikova, or even Ivan The Terrible will use your card with impunity in the majority of stores, where some poorly-trained, commission-hungry or simply lazy, sales assistant will scan the card and blithely accept any signature without checking it against the one on the card.

Of course you can be over-cautious in these matters. My fat friend from Knaresborough, who is a retired credit manager, won't have anything to do with credit or debit cards. He always pays his bills with "old-fashioned" cheques and endorses them "account payee." But then, to some people, money is the most important commodity in the world. I really am glad I've stopped doing the lottery, and will never have a lot of money to worry about.

Life is getting cheap the world over, but nowhere cheaper than in Russia. Particularly in their armed forces. First, poorly trained and ill-equipped Russian conscripts are used as cannon fodder against battle-hardened Chechen Republic freedom fighters. Now the crew of a nuclear submarine have been sacrificed because of the arrogant pig-headedness of Russia's compassionless president, trying to impress NATO by playing out-moded 1960s major power games.

Regardless of ideological differences, we are right to try to live peaceably with all nations.

But shouldn't we be careful about "getting into bed" with people who put pride and prejudice before humanity?